REFLECTIONS ON OUR FAITH AND ITS PRACTICES

Lovely posts upstairs, Teresa - thanks you very much.

Wasn't it also the Benedictine order that kept up research on the authentic performance practice of Gregorian chant when especially 19th century Romanticism perverted it with heavy and chromatic organ harmonisations? And Benedict's writings on the liturgy are so sound and profound that one wishes every single Christian, especially the clergy, will study it with an open mind.

Anyone following the Catholic bloggers in the USA will know that these days, Cardinal Roger Mahony - LA's poster child of Catholic liberalism at its most misguided - has been holding his annual "religious education conference" [or is it mis-education?] at which all the usual suspects in the world of American Catholic dissidence get to say their thing.

These events have also been an occasion for Mahony et al to "innovate" on liturgy in every way you could possibly think of - including the 'consecration' of wine contained in plastic picnic carafes and bread in wicker baskets on the 'altar.' Nobody kneels, there's too much 'liturgical dancing' which does not in any way contribute to a sense of God, the Mass vestments look like a bad joke, and the poor youths who are dragooned into this travesty execute a Heil-Hitler-like salute to Mahony!

I think the best comment on all this pathetic razzmatazz was expressed by a blog-reader, as follows:

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Dude... dat mest up.
Seriously. They're inventing all this pomp and circumstance when a real Catholic mass done properly has enough ritual in it for everybody. It's just not flashy enough for those who think everything of interest or significance to them has to look like www.seizurerobots.com/

I don't get it. They hate tradition, and they do their best to do away with anything traditional and old or ceremonial, then they have to go invent their own traditions and ceremony and invent meaning. Why reinvent the wheel?

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Thanks for the post, Teresa.

I can relate very much to what Jeff Miller of Curt Jester posted:

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Though I guess the main reason I am so annoyed by these youth Masses is that it is understandable to try to reach out, but this is the wrong way to go about it. Speaking from my own experience toward the end of my high school years my mother converted to the Catholic Church and wanted me to go with her to Sunday masses. Being an atheist at that point this was not exactly something I wanted to do, but I did to please her. It was a very typical 1970s style liturgy in Portland, Or and the music was very modern with a high energy level. Since I love to sing I didn't mind it at all and even later joined their small choir of about four people. We sang from a prominent place on what I considered the stage. Growing up with a father who was an actor and puppeteer and doing a lot of shows myself I just considered the Mass a kind of performance of religious people. There was never anything in the homilies that bothered me as an atheist and it was fun to all hold hands and sway back and forth while singing "Day by Day" from Godspell. What I considered to be the audience did the same and the people even moved into the aisles between the rows to hold hands. This was all fun and entertaining it just wasn't about worship, transcendence, the sacrifice of the Mass. Calvary was conspicuously absent. I had no problem with the liturgy being all about me and directed to the people in the pews, after all I didn't believe in God. The problem with these contemporary liturgies is that they just don't prepare us for worship and love of God. Looking back I feel cheated that my exposure to the Catholic Church was a cheap performance instead of what it should be. Of course it doesn't mean that if my mother had dragged me along to a beautiful and faithful parish like Holy Rosary in Portland that my conversion had been much sooner, but it certainly would have been nice to be introduced to not only the beauty of the liturgy but the awesome beauty of the faith - even if my hard-headedness was not ready for it.

www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester/archives/006636.php

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I too came from an unbelieving, agnostic background and I could easily see myself being sucked into the same kind of high-level energy gathering with loud rock music pounding and bodies swaying en masse. Everyone doing the same thing as the leader, very much like a Nazi Nuremburg rally. And I wouldn’t have felt out of place in such a setting because there was no talk of God or Jesus or the repenting of sins or anything resembling Christianity, since I wasn’t interested in finding God at the time. I had experience with this once when I attended a weekend self-help seminar in New York City in the early 1980’s with an organization called Lifespring that turned out to be just another cult pushing self awareness/esteem & realizing one’s potential through psychological and behavioral modification. It started out pleasantly enough in a friendly atmosphere with people smiling and embracing each other upon meeting for the first time. One of the many tools they employed was singing and dancing to loud music that everyone had to take part in. Still for me, the good feelings didn’t last and by Sunday night I couldn’t wait to get the H*** out of there and forget the whole thing. I learned then that I really wasn't cut out for that sort of "spiritual seeking". There were still plenty of people who stayed to continue these “workshops”, but I didn’t stick around to find out what happened to them. That is why I cringed when I saw pictures of these youths holding up their arms in Nazi-like salute and wonder if they are, in any way, aware while they’re doing it of how this appears to outside observers. It is weird to see this going on in a Catholic youth festival presided over by no less than a Cardinal of the Church. In the Cafeteria Is Closed comment box, I questioned how the Vatican could remain quiet, since they surely know what’s been going on in L.A. for some time.

closedcafeteria.blogspot.com/2006/03/day-1-youth-day-of-mahony-fest...

I don't get it. Cardinal Mahony and his band of fellow mis guided souls clearly don't like the Catholic Church as is... in all her glory. So why don't they leave? They want to change the Church - yeh right! They want to change the litergy into something that is more to their liking because they don't want to participate in something that is universal. Don't they understand that by kneeling we are submitting to the authority of God? By kneeling we are allowing God to speak to us. We are never closer to God then when we are kneeling. They want to change the teachings because they don't want to hear that what they take for truth is not the whole truth. I don't get it because for years I was searching for the exact thing they are trying to get away from!

..What had always drawn non-Caths to the Catholic Church was mainly the liturgy. I'm still upset, no, dumbfounded, by some of the methods used by Christianity in the past few decades to draw especially the youth to church. Haven't they learnt yet that the effects of their liturgical "shows" don't last? The novelty wears off, many of these "caught" youths later drop the church altogether, or continue a search for other novelties in other denominations. (I'm speaking in general, not only about the RCC). But perhaps things aren't as bad in the RCC as a whole. I wonder if there's any statistics (not that one can always trust these!) available for the Vatican on the liturgical situation in the global Church?

Mag6, NanMn, everyone who feels so down because of the Mahonys of the Church and what they are doing to the liturgy, take heart from Bishop Edward Slattery of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who writes a letter to his flock to tell them what he thinks about the the rites and sacraments of the Church and why they should be done right. May his tribe increase!

The full letter can be seen in
www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester/archives/006637.php#more

I like Slattery's turn of phrase when he says, "Please do not think these are just the preoccupations of a liturgical curmudgeon."


A blog reader wrote in: "How good to see a Bishop honestly shepherding his flock, instead of just trying to make them feel good about themselves."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/04/2006 0.02]

From blogger Guy Sylvester of SHOUTS IN THE PIAZZA
shoutsinthepiazza.blogspot.com/ -
Did you know it existed?


"No, Piero, in liturgy our focus
isn't out there on them...it's on Him."

Here is the text of a very interesting but rather long speech by Cardinal Arinze about the Eucharist. He refers to Papa's views on the liturgy as expressed in Papa's book, "Spirit of the Liturgy", and makes quite a few rather humorous comments in regard to those who treat the Eucharist lightly or with disrespect. Here's the link: www.indcatholicnews.com/arinze123.html

[Modificato da benefan 03/04/2006 19.47]

Go check out the Whisperer's blog yesterday on the Mass of the Holy Chrism. You know the spot -http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/
It's a beautiful piece by someone who appreciates a traditional rite done well and appropriately.
(Too bad he has been equally laudatory about Marini's "innovations" and excesses in the past!)

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/04/2006 19.26]

Rocco refers to this guy in his blog. McFaul has quite an illustrious musical past and has composed a Mass which you can access on his website, www.tommcfaul.com/index.html
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The Sad State of Liturgical Music in the Catholic Church
by Thomas G. McFaul

The awful stuff that has passed for liturgical music in the Catholic Church for the past thirty-five years is a continuing disgrace and embarrassment. The insipid "hymns" and utterly trite musical settings of parts of the Ordinary of the Mass suddenly appeared from nowhere sometime shortly after Vatican II.

Overnight, fifteen hundred years of some of the most beautiful, inspired music in all of Western culture was thrown out and replaced by what sounds like bad 1960's folk-pop-elevator music. In fact, it's worse than that. Nothing in pop music ever sounded quite as loathsome as what is played and sung in the church today.

The magnificent and austere chant as well as Masses and other liturgical music written by a succession of history's greatest composers has largely disappeared from the Catholic Church. As Richard Morris[1] has pointed out, the great tradition of Liturgical music flourishes today in concerts, on CDs, everywhere but in the church. How did this great art get replaced by the repugnant drivel we hear today? What happened? Who commissioned this awful stuff? Why has this been tolerated all this time? Who writes this trash? If there is to be new music, why isn't it better? This rubbish is not heard just in regional parishes in the U.S. It is worldwide. To my horror, I heard this same shameful music performed at the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome!

Try to imagine what it would be like if the rest of the Church's art were dumbed-down to this degree. Paint-on-velvet say, replacing the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Or an upturned bathtub with a plastic Virgin, spray painted blue, replacing the Bernini's. Would the clergy and faithful sit by silently and endure such an insult? Is music a less important art form in the eyes of the modern church? It would seem so.

Apparently, part of the reason for the sweeping changes of Vatican II was to make the service more accessible. It was thought that vernacular "folk masses," and other such misguided secular notions would somehow bring the parishioners closer to the service. It has not done so. How could it? Bad music is just bad music. Some of these ideas might have worked to some degree if the job of writing the music had been given to anyone capable. But that didn't happen. The congregation does not participate in singing any more than they ever did. Why would they? Who would want to sing this music?

The choir had always handled the bulk of the singing in past generations, and did so quite adequately. Even in my small parish, the choir was good enough to sing some Palestrina, Vittoria, and other great composers, as well as the chant. This magnificent music was a vital part of the uplifting experience of going to church. The chant worked for illiterate Medieval peasants. Are we somehow less sophisticated today than they were?

Did Vatican II really think that the average church parishioner could somehow no longer appreciate the music of Josquin? Did they think that the congregation could no longer relate to the music of Ockegham and Byrd? This is clearly not true. There are more recordings of this music today than ever before, eagerly listened to by people all over the world. Is there something out of line with this music and the interpretation of church doctrine according to Vatican II?

In the 1950's, when I was growing up Catholic, we were taught that one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Catholic Mass was that it was the same everywhere, unchanging. We were taught that the mass never changed, at least not much since the Council of Trent in the mid-sixteenth century. That's why it was said in Latin, so that it would be the same in any service, in any country throughout the world. It was not subject to regional traditions, local bias, local mores, local interpretations, local reformers, but rather it remained unaltered everywhere, and always would remain the same. One could expect to hear the beautiful chant sung in Latin wherever one went. One also looked forward to the almost endless supply of magnificent contrapuntal music performed at High Mass and special occasions throughout the church year. Gesualdo on Good Friday maybe, if the choir was up to it.

Then suddenly, it all went away. Suddenly, there were bad folk guitar players in church, bongos. The choir disappeared. Why is all of the new music in the church totally uninspired and pedestrian? Doesn't anyone care?

A grave error in judgment has been made and seems to go unnoticed. The church in its ignorance has willfully reduced the music of the Mass to a numbingly dumb, excruciatingly bad set of fake-folk melodies. The musical part of the service is no longer uplifting, no longer a positive experience. It is an embarrassment of bad taste.

My understanding was that folk masses, masses in the vernacular, and the "new music," were meant to be exceptions to the traditional Latin services and their attendant music, that the Latin Mass would remain the standard, that these new things were experiments. Instead, they have become the norm. The old music is now so distant that priests, and church choirs no longer even remember the traditions, so all that beautiful chant, all that magnificent art music is completely lost on younger generations of Catholics. What a shame for a young person to grow up thinking that Marty Haugen is the traditional music of the Catholic church.

Today we are seeing the results of some of the misguided reforms of the church since the 1960's. Catholic congregations diminish in numbers every year in the U.S. Fewer and fewer Catholics are finding vocations in the priesthood or as nuns. The truly important reforms: Holy Orders for women, celibacy as a choice for priests, the church's view of contraception, and the responsibility of the church leadership in dealing with its own criminals, have not been addressed. Instead the church has concentrated on secularizing its traditions and with that, diminishing, or getting rid of much of the art that has contributed to the glory of God as well as profoundly enhancing the joy and uplifting experience of celebrating the sacrifice of the Mass.

[Modificato da benefan 06/04/2006 17.12]

for this article. I can kiss this guy for his honest assessment. Because he is a composer of non-classical music as well, his horror at the state of Catholic music has that more punch.

He mentions i.a. that church choirs have mostly vanished in the States. In Italy they do exist, as can be heard every Sunday on RAI-TV. These Italian church choirs are mixed (male and female)like so many in the non-Catholic denominations. They carry much of the musical aspects of the Mass and one must have admiration for the fact that parishioners (amateurs) give up free time for rehearsals. Sadly though, as I've mentioned elsewhere before, the standard of music is mostly below par and the sound quality of most of these choirs isn't good either. (Older women with wobbly voices,younger ones with operatic ambitions, pushing the voice so that it is either too sharp or below the pitch.) I presume these mixed choirs of lay people are a result of Vatican II philosophies. So, Italy for one has choirs, but they detract from the quality of the mass.

The guy also asked rethorically whether modern parishioners are less able to appreciate Gregorian chant and the riches of polyphony than our Medieval counterparts. He seems to forget that both secular and church music until c. late- Renaissance, and even in Baroque times, shared the same basic musical language/grammar. The "Pop"-music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance were also based on Church modes (Dorian, Phrigian, Mixo-lidian etc.)And their art music developed from/out of the church music. Roman Catholic music is historically the basis of Western art music.

But what happened in the 20th century? Art music kicked the old tonal basis of classical music under its #$%@# and went atonal and later dodecaphonic. Any one who still tried to compose in the known tonal way was criticised as old hat, conservative, persona non grata. Did audiences ever really warm up to 20th century art music? NO. They went back to the "museum" music of earlier centuries, and who can blame them? Art music left a total void in terms of audience appeal. This is where pop-music, rock and all its sub-genres stepped in to fill that CULTURAL void. The audiences of today, especially the youth, really know little else. Because even the Church clutched this 20th century cultural product to its bosom, most modern people couldn't even meet up with real church/art music on Sundays as had happened in all previous centuries. This historical-cultural situation therefore became a vicious circle.
It cannot, with a magic wand, be changed overnight but will need some patient re-education.

So, the answer to whether we are less capable than Medieval believers to relate to chant etc. is in my opinion "No, perhaps not intrinsically, but the vast majority of today's believers has been raised on a musical diet totally divorced from Gregorian chant and especially Renaissance polyphony. That includes the musicians and very many priests who will have to take the lead in the re-education process. And this is the sad reality."

For Palm Sunday:

Hosanna Filio David!
Benedictus qui venit
in Nomine Domini.
Rex Israel.
Hosanna in excelsis!

Mag6, I was going to post something, at least a link, to a blog that had good things to report about the enthusiastic interest in Gregorian chant and polyphonic music among young Americans (!), but I didn't take notes when I was trolling the Net and now I can't find it...I'll post it as soon as I can retrace it.

I wouldn't be as down as you on the prospects for educating more people in 'appropriate' church music. One of the blessings of the communications age is that the world may never again have to undergo a Dark Age when all information and cultural content face extinction.

In the field of music, recorded performances as well as sheet music have abundantly documented the best (as well as the worst, of course) that the human mind has been capable of devising. So there will always be models for those who are interested.

And susceptible minds and hearts will always recognize and be attracted to abstract beauty - in the sense of harmony, composition, structure - in the arts or in the sciences. They may never be the majority, but there will always be enough around to keep the flame of human genius alive. Of that I am sure.

On another topic:

I just discovered a blogspot called "One Monk of the Order of St. Benedict" in which a Father Stephanos, OSB, posts a daily 'summary' of sorts of the day's Mass liturgy, quoting from the Gospel, readings or prayers, and giving a mini-homily -never very long, easy to read, and to the point. Short of going to Mass or privately praying the canonical hours, it is a helpful way to start the day.
The link is 1monk.blogspot.com/

Also, one of his recent posts was in the form of brief notes on the amazing number of parallels between the stories of Cana and Calvary in the Gospel of John - it's quite something, like a Ratzingerian homiletic approach!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/04/2006 13.19]

From Sandro Magister today on
www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=49404&eng=y -
an appropriate text to read and consider.
---------------------------------------------------------------


An extraordinary lesson on the liturgy,
written by Romano Guardini, the theologian
who was Joseph Ratzinger’s instructor.
The text is translated from the original German
for the first time.

by Sandro Magister

ROMA, April 12, 2006 – In Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Benedict XVI is celebrating his first Holy Week as pope. Meanwhile, in another ancient and grandiose basilica, that of Monreale in Sicily, the Paschal rites find a “guide” very close to him in point of view: Romano Guardini, the German theologian from whom the young Joseph Ratzinger learned the most in the area of liturgy.

Guardini visited the basilica of Monreale in 1929, and told the story in his “Voyage in Sicily.”

The present archbishop of Monreale, Cataldo Naro, took up the original German version of Guardini’s account, translated it, and provided it for the faithful within a pastoral letter with the title “Let Us Love Our Church.” It is like a guide for today’s liturgical celebrations.

In the text, the great German theologian wrote of all his amazement at the beauty of the Monreale basilica and the splendor of its mosaics.

But above all, he wrote of how impressed he was with the faithful who attended the rites, and their “living-in-the-gaze,” with the “compenetration” of these people and the figures in the mosaics, which draw life and movement from the assembly.

“It seemed to him,” archbishop Naro notes in his pastoral letter, “that those people celebrated the liturgy in an exemplary way: through vision.”

The basilica of Monreale, a masterpiece of twelfth century Norman art, has its walls completely covered with gold-enameled mosaics depicting the stories of the Old and New Testaments, angels and saints, prophets and apostles, bishops and kings, and the Christ “Pantocrator,” ruler of all, who from the apse enfolds the Christian people in his light, his gaze, his power.

Here follows a translation of Guardini’s account of his visit to Monreale, excerpted from his Reise nach Sizilien [Voyage in Sicily].

The German original is in Romano Guardini, “Spiegel und Gleichnis. Bilder und Gedanken [Mirror and Parable: Images and Thoughts]”, Grünewald-Schöningh, Mainz-Paderbon, 1990, pp. 158-161.


“Then it became clear to me
what the foundation of real liturgical piety is...”
by Romano Guardini


Today I saw something grandiose: Monreale. I am full of gratitude for its existence. The day was rainy. When we arrived there – it was Holy Thursday – the solemn Mass had proceeded beyond the consecration. For the blessing of the holy oils, the archbishop was seated beneath the triumphal arch of the choir. The ample space was crowded. Everywhere people were sitting in their places, silently watching.

What should I say about the splendor of this place? At first, the visitor’s glance sees a basilica of harmonious proportions. Then it perceives a movement within its structure, which is enriched with something new, a desire for transcendence that moves through it to the point of passing beyond it; but all of this culminates in that splendid luminosity.

So, a brief historical moment. It did not last long, but was supplanted by something else entirely. But this moment, although brief, was of an ineffable beauty.

There was gold all over the walls. Figures rose above figures, in all of the vaults and in all of the arches. They stood out from the golden background as though from a star-studded sky. Everywhere radiant colors were swimming in the gold.

Yet the light was attenuated. The gold slept, and all the colors slept. They could be seen there, waiting. And what their splendor would be like if it shone forth! Only here and there did a border gleam, and an aura of muted light trailed along the blue mantle of the figure of Christ in the apse.

When they brought the holy oils to the sanctuary, and the procession, accompanied by the insistent melody of an ancient hymn, wound through that throng of figures, the basilica sprang back to life.

Its forms began to move. Responding to the solemn procession and the movement of vestments and colors along the walls and through the arches, the spaces began to move. The spaces came forward to meet the listening ear and the eye rapt in contemplation.

The crowd sat and watched. The women were wearing veils. The colors of their garments and shawls were waiting for the sun to make them shine again. The men’s faces were distinguished and handsome. Almost no one was reading. All were living in the gaze, all engaged in contemplation.

Then it it became clear to me what the foundation of real liturgical piety is: the capacity to find the “sacred” within the image and its dynamism.

Monreale, Holy Saturday. When we arrived, the sacred ceremony had come to the blessing of the Paschal candle. Immediately afterward, the deacon solemnly advanced along the principal nave, bearing the Lumen Christi.

The Exultet was sung in front of the main altar. The bishop was seated to the right of the altar, on an elevated throne made of stone, where he sat listening. After the Exultet came the readings from the prophets, and I rediscovered the sublime significance of those mosaic images.

Then there was the blessing of the baptismal water in the middle of the church. All the concelebrants were seated around the font, with the bishop in the center and the people standing around them. The babies were brought forward – one could see the emotion and pride in their parents – and the bishop baptized them.

Everything was so familiar. The people’s conduct was simultaneously detached and devout, and when anyone spoke to another person standing nearby, it was not a disturbance. And so the sacred ceremony continued on its way. It moved through almost every part of that great church: now it took place in the choir, now in the nave, now under the triumphal arch. The spaciousness and majesty of the place embraced every movement and every figure, commingling them and uniting them together.

Every now and then a ray of sunlight pierced through the vault, and a golden smile spread across the space above. And anywhere a subdued color lay in wait on a vestment or veil, it was reawakened by the gold that spread to every corner, revealed in its true power and caught up in an harmonious and intricate design that filled the heart with happiness.

The most beautiful thing was the people. The women with their veils, the men with their cloaks around their shoulders. Everywhere could be seen distinguished faces and a serene bearing. Almost no one was reading, almost no one stooped over in private prayer. Everyone was watching.

The sacred ceremony lasted for more than four hours, but the participation was always lively. There are different means of prayerful participation. One is realized by listening, speaking, gesturing. But the other takes place through watching. The first way is a good one, and we northern Europeans know no other. But we have lost something that was still there at Monreale: the capacity for living-in-the-gaze, for resting in the act of seeing, for welcoming the sacred in the form and event, by contemplating them.

I was about to leave, when suddenly I found all of those eyes turned toward me. Almost frightened, I looked away, as if I were embarrassed at peering into those eyes that had been gazing upon the altar.
__________

Magister's article directs the reader to the pastoral letter of the archbishop of Monreale, Cataldo Naro, which includes the selection from Romano Guardini reproduced above, as well as the website of the archdiocese.

Magister adds the following information:

The connection between Benedict XVI and Romano Guardini is very evident even in the title of the book “Introduction to the Spirit of the Liturgy” published by the present pope in 1999.

The preface to the book begins as follows:

“One of my first readings after the beginning of my theological studies, at the beginning of 1946, was the first work by Romano Guardini, 'The Spirit of the Liturgy,' a little book published for Easter of 1918. This work made a decisive contribution to the rediscovery of the liturgy, with its timeless beauty and grandeur, as the vital center of the Church and Christian life. [...] This book of mine is intended to represent another contribution to the renewal of this understanding.”

Last Thursday, April 6, replying in St. Peter’s Square to a young man’s question about his vocation, Benedict XVI again emphasized that when he was a young man, his vocation emerged and flourished with the “discovery of the beauty of the liturgy.” Because “in the liturgy, the divine beauty really appears to us, and heaven opens up.”

Next April 26, the feast of the dedication of the basilica of Monreale, the celebrations will be presided over by the pope’s cardinal vicar, Camillo Ruini.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/04/2006 17.04]

What a wonderful description by Guardini. Thank you! It is also clear that he was blessed with a marvellous liturgical sensitivity and visual "third eye". No wonder Ratzinger was influenced by him. I never knew Guardini was German himself. His name sounded so Italian to me.

[I had such good intentions for this thread on Holy Week - like going back to see what Joseph Ratzinger has written about Holy Week practices through the years, especially those in his native Bavaria. Comparing them perhaps to Holy Week practices in the Philippines where, as I have had occasion to mention before, we inherited a baroque tradition of Catholicism from Spain and have gone on to innovate with actual live Crucifixions of volunteer penitents on Good Friday.

But just keeping up with current Papal and Church events for the forum (and the translations) has thwarted my intentions. In case I never get to do the Philippine part of it fully, here are a few of the practices dear to my childhood:

Good Friday was always reserved for "The Seven Last Words" of Christ, the brief sentences that the Gospels tell us He said on the Cross up to the final "Consummatum est!" as He breathes his last.

In almost every church in the Philippines at midday on Good Friday, the faithful gather to hear a priest (more than one, depending on how big the parish is) preach meditations on the words of the dying Christ. Holy Week usually falls during the start of the hot season in the Philippines, and I always thought of the experience of sitting in Church for three hours listening to these sermons in 95-degree-F heat as an appropriate act of penitence. To this day, I associate Good Friday with stifling midday heat - I like to think it was the same hot sun that shone pitilessly on the crucified Lord at Calvary that long-ago day.

In between sermons, one listened to lay people chanting the Passion of Christ in the vernacular. I never researched the origins of the practice, nor how the peculiar chant with which it is "sung" was developed (not Gregorian chant certainly, but something similar to the sung parts of the Mass, when you can "scan" any text into the structure of the chant).

In many Philippine homes today, the Passion (referred to in all of the different 80-plus Philippine regional languages simply as 'Pasion') continues to be sung every day starting on the evening of Palm Sunday and culminating at 3 p.m. on Good Friday. Usually, neighbors get together in someone's home - someone else's every night - to sing the 'Pasion.' Even if you did not do it yourself at home, you could not miss hearing the melancholy chants from neighboring homes!

At 3 p.m., the church bells toll and there is absolute stillness in the congregation. All the hand fans that have been in constant necessary use (excellent exercise for the wrist!) to get some relief from the heat are stilled. Everyone is kneeling, with heads bowed, to mark this signal moment in the history of mankind. As a child, I was always hoping to hear thunder and see lightning at this point!

After that, the priest unveiled the "Santo Entierro" (The Holy Corpse) - usually a big glass showcase within which lay a lifesize image of the deposed Christ, before which candles were lit, and the faithful came up to kiss the glass and say a prayer.

In the big parishes, a big procession through the town would follow, patterned after the elaborate Good Friday processions still held in Sevilla, Spain. Besides the "Santo Entierro," the other 'carrozas' (floats, in the secular sense) would bear images of other figures and scenes associated with the Passion and Death of Christ. There are towns in the Philippines where the Good Friday procession is attended by thousands of visitors from out of town, just to see the pageant of life-size (and sometimes bigger than lifesize) images in ivory and polychrome wood - usually heirlooms crafted by the 17th and 18th century Filipino and Chinese artisans whose artistic production fills churches, museums and private art collections in the country - with their robes or shrines ornamented in gold, silver and precious stones.

We did nothing special on the Saturday before Easter - we call it "Sabado de Gloria" (Glory Saturday) - except that children below 14 were advised to jump as high as they could as soon as they got up in the morning if they wanted to grow tall and not be stunted!

The whole preparation was for Easter Mass. In some churches, it was held at midnight of Saturday, in others, a little later. But everyone looked forward to the "Salubong" (a Filipino word for "meeting"). This was a ritual pageant-procession held right after the Solemn High Mass for Easter, before break of dawn.

Two processions formed - one behind a figure of the Risen Christ, the other behind a figure of the Virgin Mary. The idea was to recreate the first encounter between the Risen Lord and His Mother on that first Easter Sunday.

The processions came from opposite points of the churchyard to meet in front of the church door, where a platform would have been erected, from which a few chosen children dressed in white with paper wings, could bend down at that point and pluck off the veils that covered the images - Mother and Son seeing each other again!

Afterwards, one went home and feasted. It was a second Christmas. In fact, we use the Spanish word for it, Pascua, from the Hebrew Pasch. Easter is "Pascua de la Resurreccion" whereas Christmas is "Pascua de la Navidad". Funny, we do not have a vernacular term for Easter - traditional families call it "Domingo de Pascua" (Paschal Sunday) - whereas the word 'Pascua" itself was long ago adopted into 'Pasko', the vernacular term for Christmas.

I can only be thankful there are no rabbits and eggs in the memories of my childhood Easters. They were exclusively religious.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/04/2006 17.40]

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Scritto da: mag6nideum 12/04/2006 17.40
What a wonderful description by Guardini. Thank you! It is also clear that he was blessed with a marvellous liturgical sensitivity and visual "third eye". No wonder Ratzinger was influenced by him. I never knew Guardini was German himself. His name sounded so Italian to me.

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Guardini is actually Italian by birth, his parents where from Verona, northern Italy, they moved to Germany when his was a child. In my opinion he took the best both from Italian and German catholic tradition.

TERESA,

Thanks for the stories of the religious customs of your childhood. The piety and fervor are beautiful. As someone born into a very secular society and a home that wasn't particularly religious, I find it very fascinating and comforting to read about your experiences and also about Papa's childhood that was so filled with pious celebrations and traditions. My Easter memories are primarily of bunnies (stuffed ones at that), eggs, Easter baskets, and chocolate. The closest thing I remember to pious tradition was watching movies like "The Robe" around Easter time.

Thank you, Stupor-Mundi, for the info on Guardini. I couldn't, for the life of me, connect his name with an authentic German-born man.

I have been waiting for the right opportunity to start something on miracles, relics, "incorrupt bodies" and other 'unexplainable things' like the Shroud of Turin and the Holy Face of Manopello. For now, I will put such stories in this thread, because they have to do with expressions and manifestations of faith, rightly or wrongly.

John Allen in his Word from Rome for 4/14/06 provides the occasion. It seems the Pope has expressed himself about Medjugorje.
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The famed site of Medjugorje, where devotees believe the Virgin Mary has been appearing and offering revelations since 1981, falls within the territory of the diocese of Mostar-Duvno in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Almost from the beginning, there have been tensions between the Franciscans at Medjugorje, many of whom have embraced and supported popular belief in the apparitions, and the local bishops, who have generally been more skeptical.

Bishop Ratko Peric, 62, of Mostar-Duvno recently gave an interview to his diocesan newspaper, Crkva na kamenu, which means "The Church on the Rock," about a conversation he had with Pope Benedict XVI during his late February ad limina visit. Peric indicates that Benedict shares his skeptical stance.

The following is an excerpt:

Some newspapers have written that this Pope visited Medjugorje incognito while he was a cardinal and that he is preparing to recognize Medjugorje as a shrine, etc. Did you touch upon this topic?


This picture was taken during that visit.

We did, and I wrote to and spoke with the Holy Father on it. He only laughed surprisingly. Regarding the events of Medjugorje our position is well known: not a single proof exists that these events concern supernatural apparitions and revelations. Therefore from the church's perspective no pilgrimages are allowed which would attribute any authenticity to these alleged apparitions.

The Holy Father told me: "We at the Congregation [for the Doctrine of the Faith] always asked ourselves, how can any believer accept as authentic apparitions that occur every day and for so many years? Are they still occurring every day?"

I responded: "Every day, Holy Father, to one of the [visionaries] in Boston, to another near Milan and still another in Krehin Gradac (Herzegovina), and everything is done under the protocol of 'apparitions of Medjugorje'. Up till now there have been about 35,000 'apparitions' and there is no end in sight!"

… The numerous absurd messages, insincerities, falsehoods and disobedience associated with the events and "apparitions" of Medjugorje from the very outset, all disprove any claims of authenticity. Much pressure has been made to force the recognition of the authenticity of private revelations, yet not through convincing arguments based upon the truth, but through the self-praise of personal conversions and by statements such as one "feels good". How can this ever be taken as proof of the authenticity of apparitions?

… Finally the Holy Father said: "We at the congregation felt that priests should be of service to those faithful who seek Confession and Holy Communion, leaving out the question of the authenticity of the apparitions."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/04/2006 3.05]

Since it is still Saturday night here in the USA, let me post this "Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday" from blogger argent on the tiber, who also found this beautiful painting by Duccio Buoninsegno to illustrate it.


Buoninsegno: The Lord's descent to the underworld

Something strange is happening – there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all”. Christ answered him: “And with your spirit”. He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light”.

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated. For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

And Mike Liccione offers this meditation:

Holy Saturday begins with the apparent defeat of God by the Devil: the burial of Jesus' ravaged, bloody corpse; his rocky tomb guarded by soldiers; the women weeping nearby for him; the utter dismay and despondency of the scattered Apostles; the body of Jesus' well-paid betrayer hanging from a noose made by his own hand.

Holy Saturday ends with the bursting forth of a supernal light driving away the darkness, conquering death and fear with eternal life and boundless love. In between are the shadows thrown by our flawed selves in that light, selves destined to be broken and remade in glory.

By taking our flesh and letting his body be killed, in the most humiliating way possible, Jesus empowered us to transcend the limits the flesh holds for us under the thralldom of sin. Someday, many of us will have transcended it, thus becoming what we are re-created to be. Some, having apparently fallen asleep, have done so already. Some, preferring the hell made by their own pride to the heaven made by humble submission to God, might never do so. But in the meantime, so many of us stand between light and darkness, throwing shadows we take for reality.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/04/2006 4.47]